(who plays those changes daddy)
it suggested that just by being over here he could be doing something terrible in the other world. Starting World War III? No, probably not. He hadn't assassinated any kings lately, young or old. But how much had it taken to set up the echo which had fried Jerry Bledsoe? Had Uncle Morgan shot Jerry's Twinner (if Jerry had had one)? Tried to sell some Territories bigwig on the concept of electricity? Or had it been just some little thing . . . something no more earth-shattering than buying a chunk of meat in a rural market-town? Who played those changes? What played those changes?
A nice flood, a sweet fire.
Suddenly Jack's mouth was as dry as salt.
He crossed to the little stream by the side of the road, dropped to his knees, and put a hand down to scoop up water. His hand froze suddenly. The smooth-running stream had taken on the colors of the coming sunset . . . but these colors suddenly suffused with red, so that it seemed to be a stream of blood rather than water running beside the road. Then it went black. A moment later it had become transparent and Jack saw -
A little mewling sound escaped him as he saw Morgan's diligence roaring along the Western Road, pulled by its foaming baker's dozen of black-plumed horses. Jack saw with almost swooning terror that the driver sitting up high in the peak-seat, his booted feet on the splashboard and a ceaselessly cracking whip in one hand, was Elroy. But it was not a hand at all that held that whip. It was some sort of hoof. Elroy was driving that nightmare coach, Elroy grinning with a mouth that was filled with dead fangs, Elroy who just couldn't wait to find Jack Sawyer again and split open Jack Sawyer's belly and pull out Jack Sawyer's intestines.
Jack knelt before the stream, eyes bulging, mouth quivering with dismay and horror. He had seen one final thing in this vision, not a large thing, no, but by implication it was the most frightful thing of all: the eyes of the horses seemed to glow. They seemed to glow because they were full of light - full of the sunset.
The diligence was travelling west along this same road . . . and it was after him.
Crawling, not sure he could stand even if he had to, Jack retreated from the stream and lurched clumsily out into the road. He fell flat in the dust, Speedy's bottle and the mirror the rug salesman had given him digging into his guts. He turned his head sideways so that his right cheek and ear were pressed tightly against the surface of the Western Road.
He could feel the steady rumble in the hard, dry earth. It was distant . . . but coming closer.
Elroy up on top . . . Morgan inside. Morgan Sloat? Morgan of Orris? Didn't matter. Both were one.
He broke the hypnotic effect of that rumbling in the earth with an effort and got up again. He took Speedy's bottle - the same over here in the Territories as in the U.S.A. - out of his jerkin and pulled as much of the moss-plug out of the neck as he could, never minding the shower of particles into the little bit of liquid remaining - no more than a couple of inches now. He looked nervously to his left, as if expecting to see the black diligence appear at the horizon, the sunset-filled eyes of the horses glowing like weird lanterns. Of course he saw nothing. Horizons were closer over here in the Territories, as he had already noticed, and sounds travelled farther. Morgan's diligence had to be ten miles to the east, maybe as much as twenty.
Still right on top of me, Jack thought, and raised the bottle to his lips. A bare second before he drank from it, his mind shouted, Hey, wait a minute! Wait a minute, dummy, you want to get killed? He would look cute, wouldn't he, standing in the middle of the Western Road and then flipping back into the other world in the middle of some road over there, maybe getting run down by a highballing semi or a UPS truck.
Jack shambled over to the side of the road . . . and then walked ten or twenty paces into the thigh-high grass for good measure. He took one final deep breath, inhaling the sweet smell of this place, groping for that feeling of serenity . . . that feeling of rainbow.
Got to try and remember how that felt, he thought. I may need it . . . and I may not get back here for a long time.
He looked out at the grasslands, darkening now as night stole over them from the east. The wind gusted, chilly now but still fragrant, tossing his hair - it was getting shaggy now - as it tossed the grass.
You ready, Jack-O?
Jack closed his eyes and steeled himself against the awful taste and the vomiting that was apt to follow.
'Banzai,' he whispered, and drank.
CHAPTER 14 Buddy Parkins